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Solarcon 2025 Recap and Review
316 Plays22 days ago
SolarCon 2025 ended, and it's been an exciting time exploring new venues, speakers, and seeing revolutionaries in the solar industry. This episode will talk about the good and the bad of the convention, and the general consensus of what you'll expect in the coming years.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name
Taylor's Sales Journey
00:00:09
Speaker
is Taylor Armstrong. I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask? solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to defeat mastery and you are about to become one.
SolarCon 2025 Recap
00:00:41
Speaker
What's up, Solopreneurs? I just got back from SolarCon 2025. We're going to be giving a recap, sharing the good, the bad, the ugly of the event.
00:00:49
Speaker
So in case you missed out or you just want to hear some recap, hope you can tune in today's episode. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:03
Speaker
And speaking of having and having a good time, it was a blast at SolarCon. ah Thank you to everyone that came up and said hi Thank you for everyone that came up and said you've listened to the podcast and it's impacted you in some way.
Listener Appreciation
00:01:15
Speaker
That is truly what keeps this show going.
00:01:17
Speaker
Wouldn't be without ah generous comments like that. And if you have not left a comment or every review, I want to invite you to do that. We are on ah Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, pretty much wherever you can find podcasts.
00:01:33
Speaker
So I'd really appreciate it. If you have not left review yet, please go leave one. We're trying to improve the podcast. So whatever you want to share, let us know. But hopefully you can make it to SolarCon. It was a great event.
00:01:46
Speaker
um There were things that I think could have been better. So i'm going to share the good. The bad, the things that I think could have been improved and I give you a recap. um I'm not going to go through much of the speakers um because, you know, as I've said in the past, if I if recapped every single speaker, this would turn into like a five hour podcast.
00:02:07
Speaker
and I don't got time for that. And I think there's more impactful things you can do with your time than this the whole speaker recap. So I'm just going to give you a some highlights. But ah more importantly, I'm going to share with you um just the overall thoughts I had on the event. If you didn't make it, then you will decide to come next year or not based on this podcast.
Vegas Arrival Experience
00:02:28
Speaker
But so it started on Tuesday on the 15th and a little bit interesting schedule, right? Most of these events, they usually go like Thursday through Saturday.
00:02:37
Speaker
This one went Tuesday through Thursday, which I actually liked because um you still got to get the prime knocking hours for the weekend. ah But so I got there on Monday night. ah hung out a little bit, went and was staying at the Link Hotel, i decided to go grab a burger, um which that's the first thing. If you're trying to grab a burger there, I think it's like Guy Fieri's restaurant. and Be prepared to drop like 40 bucks. um Spent $40 on a average burger. Okay, so they give you a heads up before you go stay there next time. Cross the street to In-N-Out, get a pretty much the same burger, lot cheaper.
00:03:14
Speaker
OK, but, you know, is a um so that was the first thing I
SolarCon Day 1 Highlights
00:03:18
Speaker
did on Monday. Tuesday was when the actions happened, when the event officially started. And the morning they had a couple interesting things going on. um I did want to go They had a Hispana.
00:03:29
Speaker
It was called Conexión Solar Hispana. um I thought that was cool. They had like an event within the event um and supporting all the Hispanic and ah Latino people that came to SolorCon.
00:03:42
Speaker
And I was thinking of going to that, but ended up doing a podcast instead and didn't know if they would accept white boys like myself in there. I think they would have, but... um Didn't make it to that. From there, I think most action happened in the afternoon.
00:03:57
Speaker
But just before we get into more of the specific things, I'll just share my thoughts in general from the events. I broke it down to the positives and the needs improvement category.
00:04:08
Speaker
so I'll start with the positives. So we could start with the positives. So I think some of the positives from this year's Soulwork On is the attendance better than other years. It still wasn't as many as I was probably expecting considering the tickets were free this year. um You would think there would just be, you know, a million people there.
00:04:26
Speaker
But a good amount of people. And what was interesting, the vendor area was actually smaller this year. And I think that can contributed to it feeling more full, right? Because less space for the vendors, less space for people to be hanging out. So it did feel like there were more people for sure.
00:04:43
Speaker
Um, and you felt a little more intimate in the vendor area because, um, yeah, smaller, um, there were fewer vendors than previous years. Another interesting thing. And, um, I heard just talking with some of the event organizers that Vegas, it is a lot more expensive to just run a conference out of. And I think I would assume they had to charge a lot more to be a sponsor.
00:05:07
Speaker
to be a vendor for this year's event. So may have contributed to there being less vendors. Who knows, but there were, it was a small, smaller expo room. Okay. Another positive, the hotels were more affordable and easier access.
00:05:22
Speaker
Like the link where I was staying is literally just probably quarter mile walk down up a hallway um to the hotel. So super easy to get back and forth. to the whole hotel. Super easy for those that were partying all night, go take a little nap or whatever between speakers. And it's funny because, you know, pretty much every other event is in Salt Lake City, Utah. You would think that Vegas would be more expensive than Salt Lake City, but not the case.
00:05:45
Speaker
It's actually cheaper, probably because Vegas, there's a million places to stay, tons of casinos. So I would imagine it's more competitive. But I did like that. ah Made it easier to access. Cheaper flights, cheaper hotels,
00:05:58
Speaker
um easier for easier for more people to come in general. um And then another positive, the speaker lineup was fire, I thought. I mean, you had David Goggins, you had the Sharks. It was really cool how they had Sam Taggart. Danny Pesce did their um events within the events.
00:06:14
Speaker
Danny Pesce had the Setter Closer Tour, Sam Taggart. I think it was a door-to-door bootcamp he was doing. So really cool to just have all the access to top closers, top setters, top people in the industry, along with some really just...
00:06:30
Speaker
killer speakers that were going on and i was really impressed that they could pivot that quickly going from Tony Robbins dropping out, not being able to make it and then being able get the sharks and David Goggins. Another positive, the food was ah top notch. um I would say it was definitely worth it for those that did get VIP ticket tickets. I think it was definitely worth it. They had some great food. um i don't know if I'm allowed to say what their food bill was, but I talking backstage to some of the organizers, they spent a lot of money on that food.
00:06:59
Speaker
And I learned last year from doing my own events, these things, they're not cheap at all because almost every venue, they require you to buy a certain amount of food from them. And so they, I mean, booking a venue that big, the Caesars Forum, they had to drop some serious money on food. And so they did not skimp out when it came to food. I mean, you and but went back there, they had just all sorts of meats, chicken, fish, ceviche. seafood and then um just snacks between every session. They had a bunch of candy back there.
00:07:28
Speaker
um Really tempting for me when I see candy, I want to eat it all. They had like the full size candy bars, the ones that you're always like coveting when you're a kid going trick or treating the ones that is like the jackpot to get. They had the full size candy bars back there. I'm trying to eat healthy. So it was like torture for me walking past them, not being able to snack some candy. They had drinks, snacks,
00:07:48
Speaker
ah chips, you name it. They had just all the food you can imagine back there. So next year, you might want to consider getting that because this year, I think it was what 300 bucks or something, 350 maybe to get a VIP pass.
00:08:02
Speaker
And I think just on the food they had alone, you could easily spend that in food. So that was great. Great hanging out back there. And of course, the people that go back there, they're generally people making more money, right? People having more success in solar because that's usually how these events work.
00:08:17
Speaker
The people that want to be around higher level, higher level guys, they're spending more money on the tickets, right? So something
Ethical Selling Discussion
00:08:24
Speaker
to consider. ah Last thing on the positive side is they had a huge emphasis this year on selling ethically.
00:08:31
Speaker
And that was a big focus of the events. They had Abigail Ross Hopper. I know she was there speaking from um the Residential Solar Association just on how we need to level up, how we need to have just better understanding, better education, better ethics in solar.
00:08:49
Speaker
Then another big one was Brett Bucci, the Freedom Forever CEO. the freedom forever ceo ah He got up there and he just dropped the hammer on everybody and just talked about how the ah the reps just need to start selling ethically. We can't continue in solar the way we're doing it. And I agreed with the stuff he's saying. um I mean, to Brett's, I think there's some there's a side of it where, hey,
00:09:14
Speaker
You can call out the salespeople, but I mean, you're the CEO. So part of me was like, hey, it starts at the top, man. Like, are you doing everything you can to cause more ah ethics in sales?
00:09:25
Speaker
Right. So he dropped the hammer. But, you know, I look forward to doing a podcast with miss Mr. Bucci, mr Brett. in the future. So connect me with them. If you're with freedom, we'd love due to do a podcast with Brett and a jam more on that, but yeah, he's right. It comes down to everyone, right? From the top down, we all need to sell more ethically. Um, we shouldn't be another big thing he was talking about. We shouldn't be like sending out, Oh, I just made 20 grand off this customer. Right. And I know in the past, I think I have sometimes shared how much I've made on deals and brag, maybe bragged a little bit about commissions. So it made me realize, yeah, it's probably not a good thing because how many customers are out there that are just in these like Facebook groups?
00:10:05
Speaker
You'd be surprised. You go to any like Facebook group. There's quite a few homeowners that have that they're not selling solar. They just go there to ask questions, see what's going on. So um are you the one bragging about commissions?
00:10:17
Speaker
Maybe we should stop that. and So things like that, we all need to up level and work together as a whole to improve that side of the industry. So I love that they had a focus on that.
Feedback and Improvements
00:10:27
Speaker
yeah And so for a couple of things that I thought could have been improved, um it was funny. actually, know, I use ChatGPT a lot to help me prepare episodes, kind of bounce ideas off of, be like my little assistant, if you will, which you should definitely be using.
00:10:43
Speaker
ChatGPT if you're not already. But I just asked it, you know, obviously chat GPT wasn't at the event, but I said, hey, based off the agenda, based off what you're seeing online, what do you think could have could have ah been more organized or done better in SolarCon? And check this out. Here's what chat GPT said.
00:11:00
Speaker
said number one overlapping high value sessions there were multiple high profile sessions happening at the same time especially during prime hours for example ai and solar installer panel and cells toxics sessions overlapped forcing attendees to choose between equally important content and actually agree with that there were times where it was overlapping where multiple people i wanted to see And here's another one it said, and i actually heard this feedback from some ah from some people online that I saw. It said, limited installer-focused content.
00:11:33
Speaker
While there are panels for installers and a few breakouts about operations, the content heavily leaned towards sales and motivational training. I actually like that. I mean, obviously I'm sales.
00:11:44
Speaker
umm I'm not really on the installer operations side, but I can see that this was a sales focused event, motivational event. And i so I saw feedback from few people that were looking to get more, um you know, installer operations content.
00:12:00
Speaker
So, yeah, it might be something they want to consider more. um i think the audience was probably heavily sales focused. A lot of sales guys there.
00:12:11
Speaker
But it might be something that they want to consider in the future, having more installer operation content. um Another one from ChatGPT, not enough time for vendor interaction.
00:12:21
Speaker
With sessions packed back to back, there wasn't much built in time for attendees to explore the exhibitor hall unless they skipped sessions. um And definitely saw that, especially when it came to the big stage, the main stage speakers. There were some pretty empty main stage speakers.
00:12:37
Speaker
And speaking of it being a sales motivational event, um One of the main stage speakers that there was a really low turnout for was ah Abigail Rosshopper. She was one of the keynote speakers speaking on the um RSA stuff, the ah Residential Solar Association on up leveling and everything. That was one of the lowest attended main speakers. okay And um it's tough because, um I mean, I'm looking at the agenda right now. It doesn't even have a topic for what she's speaking on. And especially when you go to a sales events, um naturally people are going to go to the event, the topics where they feel like it's helping to make more money. where they feel a huge benefit coming from. And at the end of the day, you know, it's good to talk about compliance, good to talk about all that other stuff, but that's not bringing the audience. That's not bringing the eyeballs.
00:13:26
Speaker
So something for Solarcon to consider, especially when you're getting that audience that's coming for sales, learning how to make more money. It's figuring out how can you get them? How can you get the butts in the seats? Maybe it's putting some of these speakers um like next to other ones where, you know, there will will be a good turnout.
00:13:45
Speaker
It's a tough question to answer, but it's something they need to talk about. Maybe it's, um I don't know, doing some type of raffle, having like a handout and putting, don't know, I'm thinking like preschool, my kids in like a preschool right now and they give them like stickers and prizes and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, we're...
00:14:02
Speaker
but Maybe that would work here to get people like stickers for attending speakers like that and have some type of raffle. I don't know. So it's not an easy question to answer, but whatever SolarCon does next year, if they want people attending ah speakers like this and they want more attendance for um some of the speakers that aren't as well known or less flashy or speaking on topics that aren't like how to make a million this year in solar, then yeah, it's something they got to figure out. um And then another thing, no open Q&A after some big speakers.
00:14:37
Speaker
um So they did have some question and answer for David Goggins and for the Sharks, but it wasn't like a live Q&A. It was kind of like pre-selected. um But the biggest overall improvement, yeah and this is this I think this is the last complaint I had,
00:14:53
Speaker
is day three, in my opinion, day three was just, um, call it what it is. Day three, I think was a failure and here's why, um they started taking down all the vendors. Um, we got there day three, all the vendors were starting to like clean up. It's like nine in the morning and they're already starting to take down their stuff.
00:15:13
Speaker
Uh, people are already starting to get out of there. It was supposed to be a full day. um I think it was technically supposed to end at four. But what happened was you go on the main exhibit hall, exhibitors hall, people are tearing down stuff. People are getting out of there. And I even thought myself, I'm like, why am I here?
00:15:30
Speaker
And I had no choice but to stay because I flew in. So flight didn't leave till that night. But ah if I could go back, just seeing what happened, I would have left probably after day two, just because there was not much going on.
00:15:41
Speaker
And I was glad I stayed because at the end there were some speakers. Sam still had his door to door boot camp going on. so there was some good stuff happening with that. And there were some other speakers. I know Michael O'Donnell spoke, um but just extremely low attended because everyone thought it was over.
00:15:59
Speaker
So they definitely need to make a change. This was the biggest room for improvement, in my opinion, of this year's SolarCon is they need to make a change. They shouldn't be taking out all the stuff um on day three. if you're going make it a full day, great.
00:16:13
Speaker
But maybe put a headliner speaker that day. ah Maybe do, I don't know, a raffle at the end. give Give people a reason to stay. And not just bail out at the end. Because, yeah, I mean, it's a long event.
00:16:24
Speaker
Three days. It's a lot of bandwidth it takes from people. But I give people reasons to stay and make sure the vendors are not taking down their stuff at the crack of dawn. So those were my thoughts from the event.
00:16:36
Speaker
Hey, um again, just kind of wanted to make it a overall i recap, overall review of it.
SolarCon Success and Future Plans
00:16:43
Speaker
So hopefully you took something. Hopefully it made you excited attend next year. Overall, I think this event was a huge success. Okay. Despite some of the areas for improvement that I mentioned, still think it was a great success. Still a great event. Hopefully you can make it next year and um just appreciate everyone that did come up and say what's up.
00:17:01
Speaker
to your boy and we'll be doing events in the future and remember if you did use our link to book your ticket or upgrade your ticket ticket rather or book the hotels we do still have those bonuses that we want to get you so um shoot us the proof of purchase with either your upgrade or the hotel we'll get you some of those bonuses stay tuned we got some exciting speakers did do some incredible interviews at solarcon and excited to share those with you coming up soon But other than keep grinding, keep selling.
00:17:32
Speaker
Hopefully you use SolarCon to up-level your game and to get some motivation to have the best year ever in solar. So we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in Like, subscribe, and apply below in the link if you want if you're interested in joining our our team.
00:17:48
Speaker
Talk to you soon. Peace. So some of you already know that I run my own door door sales team here in San Diego. And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:18:02
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
SolarScout App Promotion
00:18:06
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:18:15
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too.
00:18:29
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:18:40
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
00:18:55
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
00:19:07
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
Introduction to Solciety Community
00:19:30
Speaker
And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable and by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day. Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulcidity.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.